Hitting Women: Is it a Man’s Right?

The Man Boobz Pledge Drive continues. See here for more details, or click below to donate.

And now back to our regularly scheduled post:

Someone posted this picture in the Men’s Rights subreddit yesterday with the title “Equality.”

[Trigger Warning: Depiction of violence against women.]

.

.

.

.

.

Yep, that’s right, equality is all about hitting women. (Click the image for a larger version.)

The punchy superhero in question, Booster Gold, is from the future, and “in the future he is from there is actual equality, or at least enough of it for the “you wouldn’t hit a girl” thing to not be any kind of issue,” as one Men’s Rightser explained in the comments,

Yep, in MRA-land, men hitting women – sorry, girls — is considered “progress.”

And a critical men’s rights issue. Responding to a Redditor who thought the picture was “fantastic” but wondered if it should be in the Men’s Rights subreddit, BlueOak offered this explanation:

Making it socially acceptable for men to hit women, evidently a key plank on the Men’s Rights platform.

Wouldn’t it make a little more sense to work towards a world in which, you know, neither men nor women were getting punched on a regular basis?

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About David Futrelle

I run the blog We Hunted the Mammoth, which tracks (and mocks) online misogyny.
My writing has appeared in a wide variety of places, including Salon, Time.com, the Washington Post, the New York Times Book Review and Money magazine.
I like cats.

O_o I have a male friend who has bought me (extremely expensive, by my terms) dinners before. He doesn’t do this because he wants into my pants–he has explicitly stated not to be attracted to me, and I’m not attracted to him. He does it because he makes OODLES more money than I do, and his way of expressing affection is getting me nice food when we visit each other. I think he feels bad that I’m living in a crawl space, and getting me nice sushi that he knows I can’t get on my own helps him feel better. (And god knows, I appreciate the occasional creme brulee as much as the next guy!)

As for the ones too shy to speak… that’s THEIR thing, not mine. I mean, hell, I was here for the system members before me who were too shy to speak. They never felt it was their object of desire’s obligation to read their mind. If they couldn’t cough up their honest intentions… that was on them.

It’s kind of funny how many of our trolls follow this same pattern of ignoring what everyone else is talking about and trying to steer the conversation back to whatever they happen to be obsessing over.

But if you had a similar relationship with a different guy and he hinted at a desire for romance, how would you react?

That would depend. Do I RECOGNIZE these hints? My husband tried to put his hand down my pants, and I STILL didn’t get that he was attracted to me. If he couldn’t make his intentions clear that way, someone more subtle has no chance whatsoever.

If I DO recognize the hints, I would likely respond one of a few ways, depending on the person. My most knee-jerk would be intense discomfort and bolting, because I’m very open about being both monogamous and married, and someone who doesn’t recognize or respect that would not inspire confidence.

And if they don’t know me that well… then WHY are they in a position to be spending so much money on me? My rich friend had to have a sit-down talk with me to get me okay with him spending on me, and I’ve known him for over five years. The likelihood of being in the company of someone who knows me well enough that I allow them too buy me expensive sushi but doesn’t know me well enough to know I’m MARRIED… well, that’s highly unlikely.

This is going to sound weird, but that sounds incredibly cute. I think missing a signal like that seems…. endearing. Like, a mistake any of us (ok, me) could have made. Bolting on an unwanted advance? Endearing and honest.

OH MY GOD THAT SONG! It was embedded in some deep forgotten recess of my brain, back before English had entirely gotten worked out, and listening to it had an insta-brain memory effect. Thanks for the memory! At least now I know that my childhood memory (of the song being completely gibberish) isn’t true.

RE: Diogenes

Enh, it might seem endearing on the surface… but I hated myself a LOT. That was just one of the more obvious ways it manifested at the time, and that it failed to corrode my relationship with my husband speaks to his tenacity. Nowadays, I’ve gotten more astute, but being mostly asexual, it still takes me a little effort to remember that other people sometimes want to fuck other people.

What LBT said: ” My most knee-jerk would be intense discomfort and bolting, because I’m very open about being both monogamous and married, and someone who doesn’t recognize or respect that would not inspire confidence.” (emphasis mine)

How on earth can you read someone feeling that way as being cute? Creepy, dude, creepy. It’s like you think turning down advances or being uncomfortable/scared is some sort of appealing eccentricity – and there’s a subtext of it being something to be ignored (“cute” does not suggest something that’s going to be taken seriously).

I daresay you’ll do your standard “Oh you don’t know what I meant/you’re reading too much into it” line to this, but PLEASE consider your words and what they implied.

Enh, I am actually willing to give Diogenes a tiny bit of slack on that one. Because I think he was reading it as me being endearingly socially awkward, when in fact I have Issues. It might seem cute at first, but when you have to live with them day in, day out, they become a lot less sweet.

Yeah, I got the impression of Diogenes or some other creep hitting on a person – possibly pawing them – and when they pull away in shock or fear, patting them on the head and making some godawful condescending or downright rapey comments. Totally predatory. My reaction to any sort of advance, even if it’s just some jackass customer pretending to flirt, is pretty similar to LBT’s, and for much the same reason. Any sleaze who came out with an “Oh, isn’t that cute!” reaction would get a KILL WITH FIRE reaction, at least if I was more angry than scared.

LBT – I don’t know whether it was cluelessness (failing to get that other people have boundaries) or thinking seeing someone’s reaction to their boundaries being violated is cute, but it was well over the line as I read it. Clueless rather than deliberate is about the only slack I’m giving on this one. Wasn’t aimed at me, I know, but it’s a situation I can very easily read myself into, so it got the hackles rising on my own account as well as yours.

Even if it was him reading socially awkward, where does he get off ignoring your specific description of feeling intense discomfort?

I admit, I have trouble differentiating between a polite flirtation and a creepy one. I also feel guilty about how I reacted to one guy from high school trying to re-initiate with, “I had such deep feelings for you,” and I reacted… badly. So… yeah.

LBT – I find flirtation creepy even if I don’t think the guy is actually being creepy, if that makes any sense. It makes my skin crawl. I don’t know if it’s the more-or-less asexual thing, or the husband-exclusively thing, but the sense of anyone else acting in a remotely sexual way to me, or that they might want/expect me to reciprocate … at best it might be so ridiculous it’s funny, like the young guy who asked me to be his Valentine the other week; mostly it’s just EURRRGH.

Of course men shouldn’t hit women for no reason but anytime a woman squares up to you, or threatens you with physical violence you should be able to retaliate. Just as you would man. Men understand the unspoken rule of violating personal space in an aggressive manner will spawn a reaction.

Infact a woman attacking you with a Knife should be beaten WORSE than a man attacking you, because the woman attacking you know she has the backing of the law and the state to stab you and she will be given shelter in a Domestic Violence Scam house. While the tyrannical state Feminist enforcers that men nation wide of all colors and creeds come to call “police” will chain and haul you away; all the while you are bleeding profusely from the gash in your arm.

Bullshit. The simple rule is that you respond with proportionate force, enough to STOP the attack on you, regardless of who is doing the attacking. You don’t start beating someone when you’ve stopped the attack because that is launching an assault of your own.

Sounds to me like you’re more interested in being able to beat women than in protecting yourself. Your whole post was pulled straight out of your arse.